On a Good Day

The voices chant early, before the fog lifts, before the grass dries, and I listen to their lies.

Nobody loves you. Nothing will ever change. None of this is worth it.

Their poison shoots straight for my spine, paralyzing me in the place where I’ve come to pray. From where I sit, spirit and body stuck, I see what I’d written on the easel out in the kitchen just yesterday morning, like a banner snapping over my head now, inviting the voices, the mockery:

“Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and your plans will succeed” (Proverbs 16:3).

Yeah, right, they scoff. Whatever.

Because in the last 24 hours, dinner burns, a husband distances, a daughter threatens to run away. A baby screams, a friend ignores, another daughter bristles at every word.

This? This is a mess, not a success.

But after listening to more lies, I will myself to open the Book in my lap, to turn the pages despite my despair, and I end up with Hagar in the wilderness. Together we’re in a desolate place, feeling utterly alone and forsaken. Soon, I hear another Voice telling her to go back, to submit to her mistress. And now I’m the one bristling.

Don’t do it, the voices advise. Stay here in this desert.

But Hagar’s already turned around to go. It’s like she’s seen a Ghost. She can’t get out of there fast enough.

But I walk slower, my steps seem smaller. I put out breakfast plates. I wipe crumbs from the counter. I rub a sleepy head, wipe a runny nose. I listen with my ears and my eyes and my whole body when she speaks. Later, I fold his shirts then sit on the porch and paint tiny toenails.

Come the end of the day, the voices are gone, like they’ve been weakened somehow, and I greet a husband who’s returned from work at dusk, delivering me daisies.

Could it be, I wonder as night falls, that the success of my day is not in the end of it but in the beginning? When I choose to lay aside all that needs to be done and all I want to accomplish and sit quietly in the Presence of the Living One who always sees me? Time with Him strengthens me and prepares me to face whatever the day will bring whether it’s clogged toilets, bad attitudes, or broken hearts. Even in the desert His Presence gives me courage to return to my circumstances – the bleak, the boring, the unbearable.

I ponder this as the stars appear, as the crickets chirp, and I finish the day where it began, Book open and hands folded. I’m unstuck now, and the only Voice I hear is the one singing over me.

The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing” (Zephaniah 3:17).

Oh Megan, I’m weeping. I love you so much, sister. I despise the thought of you alone in a desert. It makes me want to run to you and plant myself beside you in your house and chant reminders of the Truth and cheer you on and affirm you and read with you.

I love you so much and I adore you. I mean I ADORE you! Which doesn’t even matter compared to God’s great love and Adoration of you! But sometimes it’s good to know we have it in the flesh, too.